Summary: The moment that everyone has been waiting for is finally upon us. With the release of firmware update 2.40, Sony will finally add features like in-game Cross Media Bar access, custom soundtracks and Trophies to the PlayStation 3. Greg and I had a chance to see the update in action a few days ago, and based on what we saw, you should be excited. Read on for details, and look for our personal impressions at the end. Read Full Article

At least some people might finally realize why so many have been loving their 360's *gasp*!!!! This is definitely a clear cut answer to why competition is a GOOD thing. I gotta think PS3 users will be like "how did I ever live with out in game xmb???" and they have the hated 360 to thank for it. It's too bad some of the features are still watered down. I have used the private chat options many times while my good friend plays a different game than me... or more importantly, right when I sign on I can fire up a chat so we can talk about whether we want to play online or stick with single player games. It's great, but the PS3 at least will benefit greatly from being able to see what friends are online w/out having to exit their games. Will there be pop-up messages when friends get online like on the 360, or will you just have to check periodically to look for friends? Either way, HUGE improvement. All in all, it still pales in comparison to Xbox Live and the 360's Dashboard features, but it's looking so much better considering the service is free.

LOL at the trophy's though. Rumor has it MS is gonna absolutely whore the HOME idea and the Mii avatars in one application... now Sony is shamelessly trying to add achievements. Pretty funny.

I would have to think that like the writers of this article said. This is just the first phase. I mean they got the hard stuff out of the way. Implementing in game XMB was probably a huge effort. Now they can just add in small features as they go. Hopefully a unified voice chat system is on the way. For me that would be the final piece to the puzzle. Oh text chat and voice messages would be nice too.

But this looks like a great start. What really impresses is that it seems to run very well. I hope all future and past game take advantage of these features.

It's important to note that while games can be patched to offer support for Trophies, the rewards can't be given out retroactively -- you'd have to go back and play through each game again. This makes sense given that someone could copy a completed save for a game that they've never played from a friend and automatically unlock all of the Trophies.

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Damn! I knew it though, it's kind of mandatory to stop people from cheating.
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i hate how they're making trophies out to be the big deal of this update, cuz IMO its not. its a tie between the xmb and music. 'achievements' and 'trophies' are such a waste, unless they unlock content... which they dont

As far as online games go I'll likely still look to the 360 first but I'm very excited about the trophy system on my sony machine which will give me a more reason to play games (not just BD movies) on my PS3. I only have Ninja Gaiden Sigma and MGS 4 (which I haven't opened yet cause I'm racking up achievements on NG 2 for 360) I'm sure at least MGS 4 will have a patch for trophies and it will likely be the deciding factor in which version of Soul Calibur 4 I buy as I leaning toward the PS3 version for Vader.

I have been a dedicated Xbox 360 owner because of the obvious large titles (ie: Halo), and the achievments. Due to the recent Ring of Death my 360 succumbed to and the recent release of MGS 4, not to mention all of the updates (trophies, leveling up!?) the PS3 has to offer, I believe my faith in a console may now be labeled "PS3". Let me see how much is in my checkbook...

I dont see why people dont understand why they cant auto pause he game. Its ebcuse it would crash games to just stop processing them if they where online. every game would have to be patched to do it correctly. so sony jsut said, let wait.

...and all this looks great, but what will be the point of leveling up? they never said if there was a point in doing so
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Is there a point in building a gamer score? No more so than leveling up.
I just hope that the levels go up pretty high to like level 100. That way if you get like 50 trophies, you still aren't on level 2 and level 5 is the highest. I just hope the scale goes high.